Saturday, January 26, 2013

Anti Abortion & Affirmative Action

1-26-13 Lecture notesSubject: Anti Abortion & Affirmative Action Policy at New Ruskin CollegeI know a Zen Priest who has a standing offer to any mother, to raise any child brought to him as his own and will return the child to the mother if she should ever change her mind and want the child back again. (The congregation or community served by this Priest is all liberal and pro choice. They are aware that the Priest’s offer is in some sense anti abortion, (or pro life), but they can not find anything to argue with in his simple offer.)Helmet Kohl, the former leader of West Germany upon the occasion of President Reagan’s visit to Germany took the President on a tour of a kindergarten. Unlike American schools the German school took children at an earlier age and its hours of operation were extended, the building itself was modern with all the comforts one would expect including a large well paid staff.As they walked through the facility Helmet Kohl leaned over to the President and said “This is our anti abortion policy.” Some American feathers were ruffled by the comment which seem to come too close to being a criticism. (One is reminded of the time George H. W. Bush called for a kinder more gentle America. This too was taken to be a criticism of Reagan and his faction; none of whom stopped to consider how such a simple call for decency could be a criticism and what did that imply about their guilty consciences?)If you can be criticized so easily, (the Priest’s simple offer or Kohl’s passing comment, or George Bush’s call for a kinder more gentle America), then what does that say about you? If we give up the abusive treatment of women wanting abortions, what else could we do to reduce the demand for abortions? The number of things is limited only by your ability to think, and in some of your cases this is a severe limitation.

For example, if the Child Tax Credit were to have maintained its value that it had in Eisenhower’s America, $500, today this amount would be $10,000 (about 2.5 times the current rate). This failure, the failure to index child support is not only a wrong. How can you advocate abuse of women when we have such an obvious failure to protect children? Indeed this failure, this wrong, could give rise to an affirmative duty to take action to correct this wrong.For most of you, members of the New Class, who think affirmative action is only where you hire a bunch of Negros this idea that we have an affirmative duty to take affirmative action in a wide area of public policy will be a surprise.For example, there are 1,746 schools at the bottom of the American pyramid. These schools account for 75% of the Black dropouts, 65% of Hispanic drop outs. “At least 25 percent of all students, and nearly 40 percent of all minority students, fail to graduate with their class” -- John Hopkins Magazine 2-28-11. To recognize an affirmative duty to take action would not be a program of hiring less qualified Negro teachers, it requires that we rethink the very notion of school.I have proposed 24 hour schools. We should have a standing offer to any child that they can choose to stay at school instead of going home. The Normal Schools should operate on a 12 hour basis. The schools would have to redesign their daily structure. They should open at 7am and close at 7pm. These schools should offer rest areas where students can nap. Quarantined rooms where sick children can stay. Music, sports, art, a variety of classes in addition to the normal academic classes would fill the student’s day.Most of this could be done with little added cost by changing the ratio of teachers to students and the use of computers. First instruction could be computer assisted, but also in addition the computer could keep track of students, and expand the span of control by the school management. Reducing the cost of management would result in a savings of hundreds of millions of dollars. For example, do we need 15,000 school districts? How many different kinds of schools are needed? 100? 1,000? All of the salaries paid to superintendents and the county and state bureaucrats could be saved and invested in the schools.Some families would want their children to stay at school all day, other parents would want to work out individualized programs. Given this level of support how many women would choose abortion? It is ironic that the people that will object to this federal takeover of the bottom dropout factories are the same people who favor the most abusive treatments of women. In addition the teachers unions will object to having teachers work on these required flex hours.But notice in my discussion of the reform of the bottom schools, of our duty to take affirmative action I did not once mention hiring less qualified Negros. The use of jobs for Negros as an alternative to recognizing an affirmative duty to take action was a way of social control over Blacks. Show me the Benjamins. This wasn’t the first instance of Negros being induced to settle for a few Benjamins rather than redesigning our schools for example. Various Black back to Africa, Black Nationalism, corrupt Representatives, Senators, Mayors have risen with much popular appeal to the Black “community.” Show me the Benjamins. Then the indictments. Republicans have been asking how does one talk to the Black Community. Be real. Do you think they are unaware of the repeated betrayals by Black politicians and ministers?Of course it helps if you have a way of showing them that you are trying to bring services to them, such as 12 hour and 24 hour schools. In all the talk about wanting to control the cost of government all proposals for change are rejected even proposals like mine which both cut expenses and increase out put. Is this Voodoo administration? No not at all. In business it is called efficiency. Doing more with less.Everyone says Medicare and Social Security need to be reformed but both parties have walked around the issue. Remember Al Gore’s “lock box.” His words were meant for the hicks. I have previously recommended that the top 20% of welfare recipients be dropped from the rolls. The top 20% as a class control 50% of the financial assets of the country. If they cannot afford to make it on their own then there is no hope for our society. The politicians who originally created Social Security thought they could bribe the rich to support the program because the rich would fail to keep the payments up with the rising prices if they were not included.I posed this thought when the comedian of the Senate still had his talk show. On Friday after my post he said we should not have to bribe the rich to support Social Security. But on the following Monday he said we should not reduce anyone’s Social Security. His political advisers had warned him over the weekend that he could not get elected in Minnesota if he tried to drop the rich from the welfare rolls. He had learned over the weekend that he must be a liar to fit in with Washington.I pointed out before that the payout schedule of the Social Security system is based on wages earned forty, fifty, even sixty years ago. And what do we know about employment that long ago? It was heavily influenced by race, gender, ethnicity. The payouts of Social Security are heavily skewed by wrongs. It is not enough to say well to day we are issuing checks without regard for the persons race because it is the schedule itself that is racist. You have an affirmative duty to take action now to correct the wrongs of so long ago.So drop the rich 20% and use some of the savings to open private accounts for the young workers to set aside for their old age. The rest of the money saved can be used to pay down the debt. Every time I post here about Social Security and Medicare as being welfare programs Rush Limbaugh starts shouting that they are not. “You paid for it. It is your money,” he bellows. There is no lock box. All the money contributed is gone. It is a pay as you go system. And we can no longer afford the rich parasites who use their Social Security checks to pay for their cruises, greens fees, while the bottom 80% works to maintain them in their rich lifestyle. If you tell the truth to the “minorities” they will quickly gauge you and see what is happening.David Stockman appearing on Bill Moyers show said we would have to default on the top 30% of welfare recipients. 20% or 30% it is really not important for neither party will speak up and tell the truth to the people. They are all like that little shit of a comedian --- liars. (He is a Harvard graduate. Is that what they are teaching at Harvard? How to be a liar?)PS And I think Iran’s nuclear program should be destroyed and the regime must be overthrown.

Sunday, January 20, 2013

Visitor's Book at New Ruskin College

New Ruskin College Visitor’s Book

Well if it isn’t Tom
Brokaw paying us a visit again. “Kicking
the latrine down the road.” Latrine was
so out of place that we have no reluctance in greeting you and entering your
name in our visitor’s book. (Also your
astonished questioning about the lack of
public discussion of the possibility of ‘Thermo Nuclear War’ in the Middle East
after my memo to Mitt Romney was noted when you first brought it up but I could
not be sure.) Not only that, but on the
strength of your latrine we will go back
and admit Mary Joe Matalin, for her “Doctor Professor,” when addressing Dr. Robert Reich.

My only disappointment
is that neither of the two of you has yet answered the Admission Test. What is the great constitutional problem that
must be worked on in the 21st
Century? You should raise this problem and then you could be
admitted to the College with all rights and privileges that you are entitled
to.

I received a letter
from Senator Lieberman. It was addressed
to Plinio, but was sent to my private
email address that only I know about.
(Though the Mitt Romney campaign also sent email to it. Is it published some where? Not that I know of.) I did send my first letter to Senator
Lieberman and my last letter of course.
I checked all my letters in the Moynihan Library archive and not one of
them was addressed to him. How could I
have missed him? To be included the
Senator had to do what you did; make a
reference, and of course I had to hear him or her do it.

Well you, Mary Jo,
and Senator Lieberman are all much appreciated.

PS And I think the Iranian nuclear program
should be destroyed and the regime must be overthrown.

Sunday, January 06, 2013

The lottery draft at New Ruskin College

No I was out of that.Counselor: But you must have thought about it, being drafted?

No I had a college deferment and then when that was dropped I got a high number in the lottery.Counselor: So you could have been drafted?

No I had a high number, and the war was winding down, I thought I was safe . . . but later someone told me that they didn’t call you in for your Pre Induction Medical unless they were about to induct you.Counselor: So you were called in for your Pre Induction Medical.

But I didn't know at the time that I was close to being drafted.Counselor: But you must have had some thoughts about the War.

Well I remember being shocked about one news report.Counselor: (Leaning forward expecting some grisly war footage.) Oh?

It was shot at some training camp here in the US. It showed recruits going to the bathroom in the morning. They were all lined up and there were just three commodes.Counselor : (Looking disappointed.) Yes.

Well there was no privacy. You had to go right in front of the Sargent and everyone else. Maybe if I passed the test for officer training I would have had the officers latrine. But still . . . I didn’t realize how close I was to being drafted.Counselor: So there were privacy issues.

Oh, yeah privacy issues big time. There were no partitions or anything. I was lucky they stopped the war just in time. For me. That is why I was a VISTA Volunteer for two years, . . . because I lucked out in the draft. It was a way to serve and . . Counselor: And still have a private bathroom.

Yeah, exactly. After the two years I wrote a long letter to Senator S. I. Hayakawa in 1979. The VISTA program was politicized and under control of Liberal Democrats. Shortly after the VISTA program was defunded.Counselor: You think there is a connection?

Well yes, it is similar to the time I wrote to Senator Bradley pointing out that the bureaucrat in the Department of Education he had contacted regarding the use of laser disks in self paced computer assisted education, the bureaucrat had claimed that he did not need to respond because I was not one of Senator Bradley’s constituents. In other words Senator Bradley could only inquire on behalf of New Jersey residents. Counselor: So what happened?

The Senate instructed the bureaucracy that they are required to respond regardless of whether the correspondent is a constituent of the Senator making the inquiry or not.

Counselor: So you have been contacting the Senate for a long time. I had a little success. They also serve who stand and wait.

PS And I think the Iranian nuclear program should be destroyed and the regime must be overthrown.

New Ruskin College Style Manual: Many careful writers insist that the words data and media are Latin plurals and must, therefore, be used as plural words. The singular Latin forms of these words, however, are seldom used: datum as a single bit of information or medium as a single means of communication. Many authorities nowadays approve sentences like My data is lost. and The media is out to get the President. Even textbooks in computer science are beginning to use "data" as a singular. (For additional discussion contacthttp://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/plurals.htm)